Even if it’s midnight, and you’re tired, and you can’t really draw so your attempt at barrel curls winds up looking like a follicular tsunami, I recommend you hide a love note in the lunch pail of any little boy heading off to his first school field trip. And, when he stays home sick and misses said field trip, let him find it when he later eats his lunch. I can almost guarantee the response will be priceless, and when you return to your desk after everyone is down for a nap, you just might find something like this on your keyboard.

It isn’t easy writing love notes when you barely know your sight words, but the message came through loud and clear for me.

Did Mama
Love Mama
Mikey Love Mama

As if the fevers weren’t enough, there is something about the anatomy of his throat that causes it to swell when he is sick.  His pediatrician has explained this condition to me on countless occasions and has even called it by name, but these conversations have always occurred when I am dead to the world from exhaustion so the only thing I can recall is that it is essentially benign and something he will outgrow.  However, on the first night of every cold his throat will swell between 11:30pm and 2:30am (of course!) to such an extent that we can hear him wheezing in another room.  Except we are never in another room because before he wheezes he develops a barking, racking, whooping cough that accounts for 75% of my gray hair.  It’s a croupy cough so deep that the first few times it happened I could do nothing but stare at him open mouthed and whimper from the nerves.  So, we are never listening to him wheeze from a different room because we are with him, in the kitchen, sitting in front of an open refrigerator and freezer trying to create cool, humid air in the middle of a damn desert.  (We have humidifiers, but he is usually crying and tired and resistant to hovering over one.)

That was Friday.

By Monday he was feeling better, which is when Nicholas started to get sick.

Nicholas isn’t a fever runner.  He runs your normal 99.9, maybe 101.  He nose does run like a faucet, though, which means at night it will run down the back of his throat and produce coughing attacks violent enough to make him gag and retch.  This also occurs between 11:30pm and 2:30am.  (of course!)  It almost never occurs during the day, and on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday morning when he was scampering around the house silent as a mouse except to ask for cookies, it was all I could do to keep from lifting him up by the collar and demanding he act sick.

I’m lucky enough to have The Mister, who plays a very active role parenting the boys with me, especially when they are sick.  He stays up late into the night with me, checking on the boys frequently and rocking them both to sleep after their coughing attacks.  When Mikey’s throat closes up, he sits on Daddy’s lap in front of the refrigerator while I pace the kitchen and rip apart my cuticles.  When Nicholas coughs until he vomits purple Tryaminic, it’s The Mister who rocks him back to sleep while I change the sheets or pace the nursery and rip apart my cuticles.

So, despite a week of exhaustion and ragged cuticles, I was at least satisfied knowing The Mister was exhausted, too.  Misery enjoys company, which is why we called each other frequently during the week just to recount how little sleep we received the night before.  By Friday it had become a point of pride to see who could brush their teeth without rinsing with a caffeinated beverage.  I was looking forward to recovering from a very long week.

And then The Mister turned to me on Friday night and said, “I think my throat hurts.”

And that is when I admitted defeat.  I think you know why.  No, I know you know why.  There isn’t a woman out their who doesn’t already know that no matter how sick your children are, no matter how high their fevers runs, how tight their throats swell, or how loudly they retch from coughing, they will never be more sick than a middle aged man with the sniffles.

It begins with a cough.  Not a wracking cough like Nicholas, or a croupy cough like Mikey.  It is the shallow, weak cough of a 92 year old man with congestive heart failure.  heh-heh-heh.  heh-heh-heh.  heh.  heh. Anemic bursts of air all through the day and night.  I once suggested to The Mister that he put his all into his coughs,  maybe get three or four wimpy ones for the price of one good hack (and a few minutes of peace and quiet).  My suggestions continue to be ignored.

The coughs are then followed by long stretches of sleep typically seen in cats.  The Mister went to bed early Friday night (wisely), knowing we had the first soccer game of the season the next morning.  We showed up, he coached, and then we went home so he and Nicholas could collapse into bed for four hours, lulled to sleep by dueling coughs.  They both woke up just in time to eat dinner.  Nicholas went back to bed, and The Mister spent the rest of the night dozing in front of war movies on T.V., opening his eyes only to make sure I was watching him die slowly.

Then come the patient progress reports.  At some point early, early Sunday morning I woke up as The Mister returned to bed after getting a glass of water to sooth his shattered throat. [<---sarcasm.]

“How are you feeling?”  I ask, as if I don’t already know the report will be grave, near death, or plague like.

“It’s…in…my…chest.  heh-heh-heh.  heh-heh. heh. heh.” He gasped as he crashed into bed in a tangle of arms and legs and covers.

“Oh.  Okay, well, sorry to hear it.  Just keep sleeping {as if  you won’t!} and maybe when you wake up you’ll feel better.”  Roll over.  Shut eyes.  Ignore cough.  Fall asleep.

A scant three hours later Mikey was up and ready to go.  Because his Daddy was so very, very sick {sigh} he wanted to make him breakfast in bed.  Twenty minutes later we were back in my room presenting to our patient a plate of scrambled eggs, two pieces of toast, a banana, and some apple juice.

“Thanks, guys.  You didn’t have to do that,” he said, barely lifting his head two inches before letting it drop again on the pillow.

Uh huh.

The Mister finished his breakfast in record time and was back frolicking in dreamland before I made it out of the room with the empty tray.

He woke up some time later and agreed he needed some fresh air.  We left for IKEA shortly thereafter at the crack of noon and were back home within a couple of hours so that he could rest.  Again.

By Sunday evening The Grim Reaper had showed up at our front door three times.  I have to say, by the third time I almost felt sorry for the guy, walking around in that black hooded cloak in the heat of September with an expectant gleam in his hollow eyes.  I said almost.  Surely as a harbinger of death he should know that despite the moans and groans and proclamations of imminent death he was no doubt receiving that this was a false alarm.  Braxton Hicks.  The ultimate tease, if you will.

I was nice about it, but finally had to suggest that he come back when someone is actually running a fever or, wait for it, has a cold severe enough to require a tissue.  But what do I know?

Some time later I was cleaning the kitchen before dinner so that I could mess it all up again when I felt a hand on my shoulder.  I looked up and found The Mister staring at me sheepishly.

“Sorry I’ve been so lazy the the last couple of days,” sniff-sniff.  heh-heh-heh. Then he left the kitchen and asked the boys to help him set the table for me.  I turned back to the pile of dishes in the sink and smiled.  I heard The Mister sneeze, and felt the teensiest bit guilty for giving him such a hard time about being sick.

“Christ!  I think I just cracked a rib with that sneeze!”

Sigh.

The next morning, I stumbled into the kitchen and found this.

I think he left the cereal box out to mock me.

A breakfast of cereal and fresh cut strawberries for the boys prepared by The Mister before leaving for work.  I called him immediately, of course, thanking him for helping me in such a simple but thoughtful way.

“Oh, you’re welcome, but it was for Mikey.”

“What?”

“Well, I mean, for you too, of course.  Ahem.  But Mikey told me he missed me making him breakfasts so I told him last night I was going to figure out a way where we could still have breakfast together.”

I see.  Most likely Mikey missed eating breakfast before noon, but that’s neither here nor there.

Not to be outdone, one day Mikey woke up even earlier than usual, and after laying with me for a while in bed said, “Mama, you don’t have to worry about breakfast today.  I’ve got it under control.”

I stumbled into the kitchen and found this.

It didn’t escape my notice that Mikey’s version of breakfast also includes an old bag of candy, scissors, a crazy straw, and a plastic golf club wrapped in duct tape, which makes cereal and fruit a tame combination by comparison.

It started two weeks ago, when Nico tackled head-on his first bout of the stomach flu. I’ve said it before and I will say it again: nothing good comes out of puking.

Second children are, by birth order, the wilder and woollier ones. Nicholas is no different. He has far more scrapes, scars and bruises than Mikey has yet to achieve in five years of first-born cautious living. Naturally, Nico took to vomiting with equal passion. No, he couldn’t puke a few times, maybe 3, and call it nap time. Nicholas had to unhinge his pyloric valve in the middle of the night and unleash a fury heretofore seen only in exorcisms, frat parties, and cholera pandemics.

Eighteen times. That’s how many times he threw up on me in the course of 8 hours. It was The Perfect Storm in my very own living room, only instead of spume and seaweed, Mother Nature tried to drown me under 35 foot waves of apple-flavored pedialyte and saltine crackers.

Midway through Puke Watch 2009.

After the storm, there was nothing left. Not even a scrap of clothing. Nico was left sleeping in a chair wearing nothing but a diaper, a bib, and two old towels. I was in the corner rocking and muttering softly.  The next few days after that were just as rough for him, what with the appearance of explosive diarrhea (how I wish it was strong enough to launch me into another continent!), so I cut him some slack and fed him whatever seemed to interest him, which wasn’t much.

One week later, Nicholas awoke with a clean diaper and a dirty disposition. It’s been a battle ground ever since.

He cries when he’s hungry. He cries when he’s done eating. He cries to get in the high chair, and cries to get out. He cries when Mikey is touching the Star Wars figures. He cries when he can’t figure out how to make cars travel vertically up a wall. He cries just to hear himself cry. Except there is no real crying. Oh, sure, he sprung a few tears that one time Mikey knocked him seven ways to Sunday during The Star Wars Battle of June 24 , but everything else? A total faker. Eyes and mouth wide, lungs loud and uvula vibrating like a punching bag, yes. Tears, no.

The smile of a kid who knows he’s going to work you in ten seconds.

I ignore him when he is acting up, for the most part, as do The Mister and Mikey. This sort of behavior is unacceptable. The headstrong attitude, the manipulating, the refusal to accept any position other than his own…it’s like me as a child, only different. In my case I was totally innocent, and any bratty behavior on my part was clearly my mother’s fault.

xoxo,
the Mrs.

Julieta Venegas – Limon Y Sal (Official Music Video) – Funny bloopers are a click away

I can’t get this picture out of my mind. I keep returning to it, in all it’s imperfect glory. Their hair is a mess. The clothes are faded play clothes suitable for what they were doing–playing in dirt. Their smiles, endearing but ridiculous. I interrupted them in the middle of an impromptu cracker break. I don’t know where Mikey found the crackers. They are from when they were both sick in November, and I thought we had finished the package. But, there they were, eating crackers and happy enough with their pilfered treats to give me quasi smiles for the camera.

They looked so happy sitting there, eating their crackers. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, they are looking more like brothers to me. I mean, they were always brothers, but before it was more like Mikey and the baby. Mikey and his baby brother. Mikey and Nicholas, my little boys.

But something about the way they were sitting there, Mikey talking about dinosaurs and Nicholas replying in incomprehensible gibberish, something about the way Nico’s collared shirt fit his toddler body catapulted me into the future 10 years and I saw them–both teenagers–sitting side by side talking about cars and girls and movies and, maybe if I am lucky, a dinosaur or two.

We didn’t officially all meet and become friends until Sonny called my dad who called the Mister who helped Sonny get a job at his company. Got that?

Sonny and Viola had there first set of twins 5 months after Mikey. Their second set of twins (yes, 2 sets of twins!) were born 11 days after Nico. We are decidedly outnumbered by children when we go out to eat, which is infrequent because we are all tired.

See that little one holding hands with Mr. Nico? That’s Isabella. Not too long after this picture she got what everyone thought was a stomach bug. Except it kept coming back. She’d be fine for a few days, and then suddenly she’d start vomiting again. After a couple of days, she’d be fine again.

Three weeks and several tests later, nothing. Until today, when she had an MRI and doctors found she has a bleed in her brain and needed to be rushed to the emergency room. I don’t know anything more than that, because that is all Sonny knew when he called. Bleed. Brain. Bad. Please pray for my little girl.

It’s been an hour and a half, and my phone is silent.

Would you do me a favor? I told Sonny I would pray for Isabella and tell everyone I know to do the same. Hello, everyone. Please do say a little prayer for my honey-haired girl. And if you don’t pray, we’ll take warm wishes or positive thoughts, too. Just leave a little comment here on this post when you do so I can show Sonny and Viola how many people are rooting for Isabella.

Thank you.

xoxo,
Jules

1. They are trying to cushion the “we think your child needs 7 years of preschool” blow with a few compliments tossed in here and there.
2. Mikey attends school with the largest group of socially mature, yet artistically inept, preschool-aged children in southern California.
3. Mikey knows his way around a pack of Crayolas and I should encourage his creative endeavors.

Of course I’m going with No. 3. It’s the option that fits best with my competitive nature and enormous ego. Besides, we have a few artists in the family, so if Mikey has talent he comes by it naturally. My brother is a video game designer (art! only animated! and with violence!) and my aunt is a fine artist in Argentina who spent a number of years in Italy restoring paintings for museums.

Oh, and one more reason I’m hanging my hat on No. 3? I have total and complete artist envy. Ever since I was a child, and still to this day, I wish I was artistically inclined. I suppose I can fight the passive voice and mend split infinitives as well as the next blogger, but what can I say? The grass is always greener and I wish I could draw. So to all you graphic designers out there: good job, keep up the good work, and try not to make it look so easy because I am totally jealous of your little mood boards and funny posters and cheeky Christmas cards you send out every year.

Back to Mikey. I had to take my mother-in-law had to the train station last night. I thought her 12+ hour ride would be more comfortable with a few snacks, and I asked Mikey to draw a picture of Gaga Pam on the snack bag. When I came back, this is what he handed me.

I know it doesn’t look like much, but for a 4-year old it’s pretty good, and for whatever reason, I completely fell in love with this little drawing. I didn’t want to give it to my mother-in-law. I wanted to hand on to it and frame it. Something about those bright white earrings slay me in a million little pieces. (You can click on it to make it larger)

Courtney from My Sunset Road (so talented!) suggested I immortalize it with embroidery, and that she too wants to embroider some of her children’s drawings. The only problem? We don’t know how to embroider, and I don’t even know how to transfer the pattern. Do I just use a light-box and use the picture as a color reference? I really want to try this. I have a family wall of pictures and love the idea of incorporating some embroidered portraits to the mix.

Any suggestions? Has anyone done this before with a modicum of success?

Mikey is the little boy who brings dinosaurs to school to show his principal the difference between an Apatosaurus, a Tyranasaurus Rex, and a Spinosaurus. Then he’ll tell her how they lived in Center America and that’s where paleontologists can find their fossils.

Mikey is the little boy who knows the alphabet, can count forwards and backwards, and does simple addition and subtraction.

Mikey is also the little boy teachers are suggesting needs a third year of preschool. For all that academic heft, he’s a bit of a rascal. He is, as they say, immature for his age. He doesn’t sit still during reading circle time, loves to wrestle and put out imaginary fires, and if it wasn’t for his ability to hear the theme song to Lazy Town in the shower while the T.V. is set to mute, I would assume he is deaf. By the way, Lazy Town? Freakiest show ever.